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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29059638">Begin Again</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkJediQueen/pseuds/DarkJediQueen'>DarkJediQueen</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A Very Sterek Winter Fest [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Teen Wolf (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>A Very Sterek Winter Fest 2021, All Human AU, Alternate Universe, Hopeful Ending, M/M, One-Shot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 08:01:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,926</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29059638</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkJediQueen/pseuds/DarkJediQueen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It was supposed to be an easy in and out. Find the cabin, plant the devices to see who came to it, and leave. Only on the way back out, deer rushed Stiles and he fell into a slightly iced-over river. Now he's trapped with his ex-boyfriend in a cabin in the woods.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A Very Sterek Winter Fest [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2123724</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>159</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>A Very Sterek Winter 2021</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Begin Again</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><strong>Year</strong>: Future<br/><strong>Spoilers</strong>: Everything<br/><strong>Notes</strong>: For A Very Sterek Winter Fest 2021 Theme of Body Heat. This is a completed One-shot. There will be no more written in the universe.<br/><strong>Beta</strong>: ScarsLikeVelvet</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Stiles shivered as he walked. It had turned a hell of a lot colder on him in the last mile of his trek. He had the devices planted, though, and he and his team would know when the deal was going to go down. His team and he were out of contact just in case he was found. He was going to play the stupid hiker who got lost. He didn't even have any ID on him, and he would not know the way back to his campsite. A few years in the FBI had given him all he needed to be able to lie about things like that. He was good at what he did.</p>
<p>The forest around him got quiet. There wasn't a lot of noise before that, but there was enough drop that Stiles wasn't sure what was going on. He looked around to see if people were coming at him, but he saw no one. He only had a hunting knife on him since it wouldn't do to have a camper being found with a gun, especially a government issue weapon. The knife was easy to pass off.</p>
<p>It was too late when Stiles realized what had caused the sudden drop in noise as the sound of a herd of deer filled Stiles' ears. He looked around for a place to make sure he was safe, and he didn't hurt a deer as it tried to miss him. He found said place behind a big tree on the river's edge. He looked down into the rushing river, seeing bits of ice floating there. He really didn't need to fall into there.</p>
<p>Stiles looked up again just in time to see a deer coming at him. He stepped to the side to get his arms around the tree from the other way, and the ground beneath him gave out.</p>
<p>The river was just as cold as Stiles thought it was as he tried to get his hands onto something that would help him get back onto dry land. There was nothing, and already his hands were cold, and he couldn't grip right. The river water was colder than Stiles thought. The world was slipping away, and he wasn't sure that anyone would ever find his body.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Waking up was slow and hard, but Stiles did it. His body ached in ways that it hadn't since he had last taken a class to learn a new fighting style. He tried to move his fingers but found that they ached as well. There was warmth on his face, and he would have thought he was dead except for the pain. He was no saint, and he was pretty sure heaven wasn't a place he would end up, but he shouldn't end up in the horrible places in hell. It wasn't but a few minutes of Stiles moving his fingers that he figured out that it was helping. He clenched and released a few muscles across his body and sighed as he was able to move with a little less pain.</p>
<p>Stiles was not overly warm, but he thought that he might turn that way at some point. He tried to move but found that he was kind of trapped. It was only when he tipped his head down that he saw that there was a lump under the blanket with him that shouldn't be there. He followed the lump to see that there was someone behind him. He couldn't move to see who it was, but given that the person was at least the same size as him and the arm was massively hairy, given the tickle of hair he could now feel, he assumed it was a male. Stiles looked around the room and took in the soft feel of it. He wasn't sure where he was, but at least he wasn't dead.</p>
<p>After a few more minutes, Stiles lifted up the edge of the blanket he was snuggled under to find that he was down to a pair of boxers that were not his, and it looked like the guy was down to the same, only the boxers were probably his. The man, from what Stiles could see, looked ripped as hell. Which was right up there on Stiles' list of people he looked at for his one night stands. There wasn't much more that could be done for him. He had given his heart so long to someone else who had left him. Stiles had been dedicated to getting the job that he wanted, which he had now, but he hadn't fucked off without telling his boyfriend where he was going. If Stiles was less secure, he would be freaking out after waking up in the arms of a strange man, but he knew the best ways to share body heat. He and Derek had done it once before when a ski trip had turned horrible when an ice storm had stranded them for a day in their cabin. It had taken that long for people to get to them, and the only heat they had was from the fireplace. They had cuddled for hours to make sure that they didn't freeze to death as the fireplace wasn't doing the greatest at keeping the cabin warm with the power out, and the upstairs windows were broken from the ice. They had tried to block them, but it hadn't been the easiest, and the warm air still escaped.</p>
<p>"Mmm," the man behind Stiles said as he seemed to be waking up. He pressed his body into Stiles', and Stiles felt the erection pressing into his ass.</p>
<p>Stiles wasn't sure if he was supposed to take that as the guy was attracted to his body or just the normal reaction after a good night's sleep. The guy had to live here, so he probably was a little of both columns.</p>
<p>"Stiles," the man said.</p>
<p>That caused Stiles to freak out. He tried to escape, but the arm around him tightened and kept him where he was. He started to kick with his feet and crowed as he was released when he got a good hit in. He got the hell away from the guy and only stopped when he had the couch between them.</p>
<p>Derek looked at Stiles like he wasn't sure what had freaked him out. It wasn't like Stiles was saved from a raging icy river every day, and if he knew that it was Derek who had saved him, his cold addled brain had forgotten to the rest of his brain.</p>
<p>"Derek," Stiles said.</p>
<p>"Stiles, are you okay?" Derek asked. He sat up and rubbed at his face before grabbing the blankets and wrapping one around himself, and tossing one at Stiles after he was done.</p>
<p>"What the hell are you doing here?" Stiles asked.</p>
<p>"I live here," Derek said.</p>
<p>"You...oh my God, your fucking boss lied," Stiles said.</p>
<p>"What are you talking about? I don't work for the FBI anymore."</p>
<p>"Dude, there is only a single reason that you would be living here of all fucking places, so don't even front with that shit. I can't believe that you are fucking here of all places and working this fucking case." Stiles stopped as he had heard that Derek had left the FBI and that he supposedly had gone over to the other side but had never believed that. He had assumed he had gone into a black book operation and needed to have no ties to anyone. It was the only reason that Derek would have broken up with him. Derek loved him; that had never been the issue. It was that Derek had left him. Stiles wasn't stupid, and he surely wasn't an idiot. He just hadn't been enough to keep Derek where he was. His love hadn't been near enough for Derek.</p>
<p>"You didn't have anything on you," Derek said.</p>
<p>"No, just in case I was caught, just enough to make them think I was a stupid hiker." Stiles had already outed himself as here for a job, on the off chance that Derek had actually gone over to the enemy. There was so much to unpack from everything at the moment. Stiles forced his thoughts away from that and just wrapped himself in the blanket. The cabin was warm enough that he didn't really need it if he had been dressed, but just in Derek's boxers, it was chilly as hell. He wanted to be anywhere, but here he was, but he was stuck here for now.</p>
<p>"Where is your team?" Derek asked.</p>
<p>"I am not fucking telling you that," Stiles said.</p>
<p>"Stiles."</p>
<p>"Fuck you, Derek Hale. You are the asshole that left me. You are the one that decided that I wasn't fucking enough for you. You left the FBI or went to some black book operation, and you left me. I came home, and all of your shit was gone. Everything. There wasn't any evidence that you had ever lived there with me. I came home with a fucking engagement ring and dinner and was going to ask you then, and you were just fucking gone. Where are my clothes?"</p>
<p>"In the dryer," Derek said. He looked like Stiles had sucker-punched him, but Stiles really didn't care. Stiles and his team needed to move, and they needed to move now. No matter what, someone hadn't done their due diligence enough on this since it seemed that Derek was here. Anyone would have recognized him on Stesil's team. Stiles still had Derek's picture on his desk. It was the whole hale family with Stiles and his father, but it was enough for them to know him. That meant something was up here.</p>
<p>"Stiles, please," Derek begged.</p>
<p>Stiles just ignored him as he got dressed. The coat wasn't in there, but it looked like it was hanging up over a vent that supplied heat. He touched it, and it seemed dry enough. He jerked it on and found his boots. Those were still a little wet, but he hoped that he wasn't far from where he needed to be. His team would assume that he was dead.</p>
<p>"You can't leave," Derek said.</p>
<p>"What?" Stiles turned to look at him. Derek had on jeans now and in his hand was a gun.</p>
<p>"You can't leave," Derek repeated.</p>
<p>"I can't leave? What are you going to do? Shoot me?"</p>
<p>"If I have to. Your team can't endanger what we have going on today. This deal has to go down."</p>
<p>Stiles felt a frisson of fear at that. He looked at Derek and knew that this wasn't the man he had fallen in love with. He had been wrong. This wasn't an off the books operation. So, Stiles took off his jacket because he needed to play along long enough that he could escape and get to his team. He kicked off the boots he hadn't tied up yet. He could do this. He could make everything okay to where he could get out. He knew how to manipulate Derek.</p>
<p>"I will make some coffee. Into the kitchen, go."</p>
<p>Stiles skirted around Derek as he headed into the kitchen area. There was a pair of handcuffs on the counter, one side already attached to the heavy-duty bar attached to the counter. Stiles didn't even hesitate to seat himself in front of it. He lifted up the other cuff and showed it to Derek, who nodded his head. The gun was trained on him the whole time.</p>
<p>The thing that angered him the most wasn't the whole body heat cuddling thing. No, it was the fucking erection. He felt dirty from that.</p>
<p>Derek came over after the cuff was latched and checked it to make sure that Stiles had it as tight as it could go. There was nothing in range that Stiles could get to that would help him get out of the cuff. Derek knew him well enough to know that Stiles could get out of it.</p>
<p>The whole relationship now had a taint to it. Stiles had never shared anything about his cases with Derek, more than what he would any other agent on another team and nothing that Derek couldn't find on his own in the FBI system.</p>
<p>A cup of coffee set in front of him pulled him from his thoughts.</p>
<p>"I don't have any Adderall here, but enough coffee should do it, right?" Derek asked.</p>
<p>"Sure." Stiles picked up the cup and took a sip. It was made exactly how he liked it. Derek's memory was good even though it had been five years. It made his stomach churn, but he kept on drinking. He didn't need his ADHD, starting to make it to where Stiles couldn't protect himself.</p>
<p>Derek turned back to the stove to do something. Stiles didn't really care. The gun was sitting on the counter, but it wasn't like Stiles was close enough to anything. The only item he had that he could throw would be the coffee cup, and even once he had thrown it, there was no chance of him getting out of the cuffs. Derek had made sure he couldn't break his hand to get out of them either.</p>
<p>The last time Derek had handcuffed Stiles, it had been to their bed, and Derek had made him beg with how much he turned Stiles on teasing. It was one of the last good days they had before Derek had just up and left.</p>
<p>Stiles swallowed around the lump in his throat. He wasn't going to let Derek see him cry. Derek had to have known that Stiles would never be in this place without it being a case. He hadn't fucked anything up to more with his words than him just being here would have done.</p>
<p>The ringing of a phone made Stiles jump. Derek looked at him with a glare and then answered the phone with the speaker on.</p>
<p>"Hale here," Derek said.</p>
<p>"Derek, I heard you found a hiker?"</p>
<p>Stiles knew that voice. Peter Hale was the one person that Stiles had stayed close with after Derek had left him. He was in the FBI and high up. It was why Derek was in the FBI. He looked up to his uncle, and he had since his uncle had saved the family house from burning down. A woman had gone after his family because he had caught her father and his serial killing spree. It was only a good tip that had made it so that Peter was there in time to save them. After that, it had been Derek's goal.</p>
<p>Now Peter was on his shit list as well. He knew where Derek was and what he was doing. Peter having contact meant that either Derek was keeping his uncle in the dark about what he did or the black books things were back on the table. Stiles had no clue what was going on. He was unsure of anything that was going on at the moment.</p>
<p>"Yes, he fell into the river."</p>
<p>"I see. And you have nothing to tell me on that?"</p>
<p>"What do you mean? He's asleep in front of the fire. When he's awake, I'll send him on his way."</p>
<p>"Your boss lied to another team in the FBI, Derek. Agent Stilinski has not been heard from since he went out to put up cameras. I heard that you found a hiker in the river through your check-in with your boss. In the same area where Stiles went missing."</p>
<p>"He's safe," Derek said.</p>
<p>"I see. Well, your boss refuses to tell anyone what you are doing out there, so I can only hope that Stiles can help you with it."</p>
<p>"He can't."</p>
<p>Stiles didn't let the words go to his heart. He knew what version of Derek he had in front of him. It was the work Derek, the one that had everyone calling him a hardass who needed to get laid. Even that Derek, Stiles hated. Well, to be honest, Stiles hated all of Derek now.</p>
<p>Derek finished up breakfast with a few more words for Peter before hanging up. Stiles had no clue what would happen next, so he just waited. He was left alone with his meal, Derek leaving the room fully to eat his. It sounded like he went up to the second floor to eat. Stiles felt like he wasn't tethered to anything. Derek was still an FBI agent. He was still loyal, and yet he had left Stiles with nothing. Derek had made a choice to follow his career.</p>
<p>The sound of the door opening up had Stiles turning around to see if he could see anyone coming in. He did, and it was a blond woman and a Black man behind her.</p>
<p>"Oh, what's with the eye candy?" the woman asked.</p>
<p>"Stupid hiker that I had to rescue. I was afraid of him drawing attention to where the deal was happening," Derek said.</p>
<p>Stiles kept his mouth shut. He related to ruin whatever Derek had going here, but he wasn't that petty. Not when it came to working. In Derek's personal life, he would be petty as hell.</p>
<p>"Boss wants you at his place, now."</p>
<p>"Good. Once this is all done, we can come back and let this guy go," Derek said. He put his gun into his holster under his leather jacket and looked at Stiles one last time before leaving.</p>
<p>There was no sound of a car starting, so the couple had obviously walked over, and then they were walking back. He was close to the other cabin, it seemed. Derek and his two friends would come back to an empty cabin.</p>
<p>Derek had given him very cheap plasticware to eat with, so that was no using the fork to get himself out of his cuffs.</p>
<p>He lifted up his empty mug and debated what he would do. There was nothing close, so if he did get out of the cuffs, it would only be through a massive breaking of his hand. It would take months to heal. He would be able to stay and do deskwork, though. He had to get out. Derek might not have a choice if someone else came back with him.</p>
<p>Derek was an enemy now, even if he was an undercover FBI agent. He could be playing everyone and anyone. Peter could even be in on this. Stiles had no information, so he had to get out.</p>
<p>The choice made, Stiles brought the mug down onto his hand. He felt the first bone snap and only let a whimper of pain out. He changed his grip a little bit and brought the mug down harder.</p>
<p>It was only a few minutes, but it felt like hours later that Stiles could get his hand out of the cuff. He moved over to the freezer and found a few ice packs. He laid one on the table on top of a large tea towel and then laid his hand on it. He laid the other pack on top and then bound it all, it sucked, but it worked. It hurt like a son of a bitch and even worse as he tightened it all up, but it was better to have the ice on it and slow the swelling than to leave it all. It was cold as hell outside, but he could deal with it. He found a pair of boots by the door, easy to tie up thankfully, and slipped into those. He tied them as best he could one-handed and snagged Derek's jacket as well. He left his injured hand in the sleeve since his makeshift wrap wasn't going to go through the hole at the end.</p>
<p>It was full daylight outside, so Stiles moved until he could find the sun and set off the way he needed to get to where he was supposed to be. He found the van and the agent left behind to monitor.</p>
<p>"Stiles," the agent said. Stiles couldn't remember the guys' name to save his life. "I have Stiles."</p>
<p>Stiles held his hand out for a comm, and it was dropped into his hand easily. The agent looked at his hand and grimaced. It was evident that something had happened even if the agent couldn't see what.</p>
<p>"Go," Stiles said.</p>
<p>"What happened?"</p>
<p>"A herd of deer rushed me. I stepped onto the ground that gave way and landed in the water. A man rescued me and took me to his place."</p>
<p>"How did you get the injury?" the agent asked.</p>
<p>"Injury?" Stiles' Unit Chief, Don, asked.</p>
<p>"No. Got that getting out of the cuffs the guy left me in."</p>
<p>"Who found you?" Don asked.</p>
<p>"You see him don't you?" Stiles asked. He waved at the agent, and the guy turned around the screen to show Derek with the two people who had come to him.</p>
<p>"Once we have the thing busted up, you head to us," Don said.</p>
<p>"I'll bring the fun cuffs," Stiles said. He grabbed a pair of cuffs. It would be fucking good to put them on Derek no matter what.</p>
<p>It took over an hour for the group to say or do anything that they could bust them on. By the time Stiles was heading to where they were, it was chaos and wreckage. The shoot out hadn’t been nice. Stiles knew that a few of the team were injured, but the only major injury had been Derek taking a shot in the shoulder that had been meant for the woman.</p>
<p>Everyone was on their knees by the time that Stiles strode into the clearing around the cabin it had happened at. Everyone but Derek was in cuffs.</p>
<p>Derek didn't even say a thing as Stiles cuffed him and read him his rights, which were few given that he was working for a group of homegrown terrorists.</p>
<p>The agent in the van had worked on getting Stiles' hand splinted and the bones at least mostly where they belonged.</p>
<p>"Your hiker friend is interesting," the woman said.</p>
<p>"I found him in a fucking river, Erica. What the hell was I supposed to do? Leave him? I didn't know he was a fucking Fed," Derek said.</p>
<p>"Now, now, don't get into a lover's quarrel. You guys will be riding back in the same transport van. Let's be friends here," Stiles said.</p>
<p>"Stilinski, get to the van. You are done here," Don called out.</p>
<p>Stiles saluted him with his good hand and headed back. He knew that he would only be there for the cuffing of Derek. It felt good to do that.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Stiles was just finishing placing his dinner order over the phone when the doorbell rang. He frowned as no one was supposed to be stopping by. He decided to ignore it. His friends texted before coming over, and his father wasn't anywhere near where he could just pop over. He had talked to him hours before he had finished his shift in Beacon Hills.</p>
<p>The doorbell rang again, and this time the person didn't let up. They kept on pressing it. Stiles knew that he could just silence it, but since he had to get up to go do that, he might as well see what drunk person was outside of there.</p>
<p>"What?" Stiles said into the intercom.</p>
<p>"Stiles?" a voice asked.</p>
<p>"Who is speaking?" Stiles hated that voices were distorted just enough with this system. He learned what his friends sounded like with ease. This wasn't one of them. Only one person had the code to let themselves inside besides his father, and Scott was back in Beacon Hills as well.</p>
<p>"It's Derek."</p>
<p>Stiles dropped his hand from the button and tried to figure out what the hell he was feeling right now. The case was landmarked even if the public only knew some of it. The internal clusterfuck that was Derek and his team getting arrested by the FBI while undercover FBI agents were all that anyone could talk about.</p>
<p>Derek buzzed again, and Stiles muted the damned thing. He wasn't ready for it. He really wasn't. He had hoped that Derek would just stay the fuck away. Given that Stiles and his team had fallen smack dab into the middle of it all, they had been interviewed about everything, and the whole internal look into it had been done with Stiles and his team there.</p>
<p>Stiles knew it all. He knew about Derek being tapped for this case and choosing to go on it. He knew that Peter knew all about it but what he had learned from that was that Peter thought that Stiles knew. He figured that Stiles never bringing up Derek meant that he didn't want to talk about it, not that he didn't know that Derek was undercover.</p>
<p>Ignoring his problems until they went away was Stiles' normal MO, but in this case, he was pretty sure that Derek wasn't going to go away. Derek was just going to be there and stay there until there was nothing he could do.</p>
<p>Stiles pressed the button that unlocked the door. Derek knew what floor he was on. Stiles had never actually left the apartment that they lived in together. He had thought about it, and by the time he was ready, it was just a place that he spent little time at. He turned the buzzer back on so that he would know when food got there.</p>
<p>Since Derek left him, Stiles had been focused on the job. He worked when he was called to, which was a lot, and the rest of the time was spent out and about. It wasn't the healthiest, but at least he wasn't fully focused on the job. He ran in local marathons. He would drop in to teach a few self-defense classes for kids at a local club. He taught women self-defense at a shelter.</p>
<p>Stiles went to the kitchen after unlocking the door and cracking it open. He was glad that he had ordered enough food to leave him leftovers. He could offer Derek food, and maybe once the meal was done, they could just part, never to be in the same place in the off-work hours.</p>
<p>Derek must have taken the stairs because he was there quicker than if he had waited for the elevator to come to him and bring him up; he wouldn't have got to the door all that quickly. Derek knocked, and then when the door opened, he just came in. He shut and locked the door behind him.</p>
<p>"You really shouldn't leave your door open," Derek said.</p>
<p>"I'm armed." Stiles waved the gun that he had beside him on the counter. He laid it down again and picked up the glass he used for whiskey. He walked over and opened up the safe, and walked back to pick up the gun before he put it up.</p>
<p>"And you just put up that gun," Derek said.</p>
<p>"Yup, I have you now. I mean, it wouldn't look good if you did anything to me or allowed anything to happen to me."</p>
<p>"How could anyone prove it?" Derek asked.</p>
<p>"There is security in the building, Derek. Don't you remember? We bought this place because of the camera that sees the face of everyone who enters each apartment. You were just caught on camera entering. So yeah, that's gonna happen."</p>
<p>"I forgot," Derek said.</p>
<p>"I have Chinese on the way. My arm is too sore still to cook. I got enough for leftovers for me so you can eat some while we talk. I assume that's why you are here?" Stiles asked.</p>
<p>"You are...different."</p>
<p>"Five years do that to a person. So what did you need?" Stiles asked.</p>
<p>"Do you have any beer?" Derek asked.</p>
<p>"Nope, I don't have anything stronger than a bottle of wine in the fridge."</p>
<p>"You used to always have beer on hand," Derek said.</p>
<p>"Things change. I got too worried about following my father down the same path he went after mom died. So I only social drink now. The wine is for when teammates come over, and we want to drink something more than tea."</p>
<p>"You never had that issue before," Derek said.</p>
<p>"I feel like a broken record, Derek. Shit changed in a very sudden way about five years ago. I came home, and the man I was gonna ask to marry me was gone. He left the FBI, left me behind with no word, and just never came back. Until now. Until I found him on a case and thought that he had gone dark side. So yeah, shit changed, and I changed. That veneer of innocence that you said I would lose one day? Yeah, I lost it. The first day I went to work after you left, everyone knew that you had left me behind. You are just fucking lucky that everyone on my team actually has a moral code, or you would have been shot worse than you were. Actually, I think that you are lucky that Moira wasn't on the case with us since she's stuck here testifying in a case. She might have put one in your forehead."</p>
<p>"Moira, I don't remember her being on your team."</p>
<p>Stiles looked at Derek and tried to figure out what he meant by that. Stiles had stayed in his former unit for a year before moving. The BAU had wanted him and tried to recruit him for a while, but he had always pushed that away since it would put the time that he and Derek got to spend together down to nearly nothing. When the Section Chief had come around again after Derek hadn't come back, Stiles had jumped at it. He had jumped at getting the fuck away from the team that looked at him with sad eyes.</p>
<p>"You don't remember anyone on my team," Stiles said.</p>
<p>"No, she's new, right?"</p>
<p>Stiles picked at a spot on the counter until Derek's words hit him. He frowned and looked up.</p>
<p>"You've been following me?"</p>
<p>"The analyst I had contact with always told me everything about you," Derek said.</p>
<p>"Everything? You were fucking stalking me?" Stiles asked.</p>
<p>"Stiles," Derek said, and he held out his hands like he was trying to calm Stiles down.</p>
<p>"No, no. You don't get to fucking stalk me like that. You don't get to leave me behind and never respond to me and then act like you give a fuck."</p>
<p>"Can I talk?" Derek asked.</p>
<p>"When food gets here. I don't want to talk for a few minutes."</p>
<p>A few minutes later, the door buzzed, so Stiles went over to press it to allow the delivery guy up. The guy always buzzed a certain way, a little staccato beat that was normal for him. Stiles got himself water and didn't give Derek a choice on what he was drinking.</p>
<p>The couch was covered in files of a few active cases that Stiles was looking into, so there were only the two armchairs at either side of the couch for them to sit on. Which was fine with Stiles. He didn't want to sit on the couch anyway and give Derek the chance to sit beside him.</p>
<p>Stiles dug into his food, picking his first and taking Derek's favorite meal, and leaving the one that Derek barely tolerated for him. Derek said nothing, which was kind of a shock. He shrugged and started to eat. He was probably still too stuck into his role as the person he played while undercover. Stiles had taken the classes to see if it was something he wanted to do but chose not to go that route. He sometimes did short stints undercover for his team if he fit a profile that they needed. Nothing more than a few days, though. It was more than enough for Stiles, though.</p>
<p>Derek had to be misadjusting to coming back to the real world. As a fellow agent, Stiles felt for him. As Derek's ex-boyfriend, Stiles kind of wanted him to struggle to go back to a normal life.</p>
<p>"Peter's pissed at me," Derek said.</p>
<p>"I have no clue what you want me to say about that. You know me. Well, you know enough that didn't change that you know that right now I'm reveling in the fact that your life's fucking perfect."</p>
<p>Derek snorted at that and nodded his head. "I let him think that you know everything. He always said that you were dealing with me leaving for a while as well as you could. I have to wonder if he kept the spiral you went on to himself."</p>
<p>"No one knew. Well, no one but Lydia."</p>
<p>Derek's face changed and shut down on the mention of Lydia. Derek had always been jealous of Stiles' friendship with her. He hadn't minded her the first time he met her when moving to DC for a new teaching position at GWU. It wasn't until Stiles' father had come for a visit and dropped that Stiles had been obsessed with her all of junior high and high school. That he had thought that one day he would marry her. After that, Derek thought that he had to do things to keep Stiles. He never believed that Stiles didn't think Derek wasn't second best. Stiles' infatuation with Lydia wasn't anything compared to Stiles' love for Derek.</p>
<p>"So Lydia helped you through everything?" Derek asked. His eyes darted around the room.</p>
<p>Stiles knew he was looking for evidence of her there. To see if Stiles had moved on with her like he always thought Stiles would do. Stiles hated him for it. Hated that he felt like Stiles didn't love him enough to die for him. That Derek felt like he was never going to be enough. Stiles hated Derek so much right then, but he also understood a little.</p>
<p>"Why?" Stiles asked.</p>
<p>"Why what?" Derek asked back.</p>
<p>"Why did you leave as you did? I don't care about why you left, right now. I want to know why you left me as you did."</p>
<p>"I hoped you would hate me enough to just leave. Then Peter kept on talking about you never dating."</p>
<p>"You had contact with Peter?" Stiles asked.</p>
<p>"Yes, I did. I had a burner phone, and I called him weekly. He reassured everyone in the family that I was fine. It wasn't a big thing, me not being there to check in myself. They understood what I was doing and why I had to distance myself from them."</p>
<p>"You went in with your real name?" Stiles asked.</p>
<p>"Yes. According to records, I was fired from the FBI for taking a bribe. It was stupid simple. I mean Peter's the FBI's big boy, the golden boy. Living up to that and then getting fired. A trial was faked in the court system, and I was let go on a technicality. It wasn't but three months until I was approached by someone to join the Alphas."</p>
<p>"How was it off the books enough that it didn't trip your boss's radar that another team was working it?" Stiles asked.</p>
<p>"It did. He told me what team had taken it, but I didn't know that you were on that team. Peter never told me you left your old unit. He talked in generalities. I knew when you were hurt. He asked me if I wanted to pass on a message. I told him no. I'm sure he thought that I had contact with you somehow. He's so pissed."</p>
<p>"I assumed he knew that mentioning you was a horrible idea."</p>
<p>"Peter doesn't so feel so asking would mean he would have to deal with your emotions and feelings about it all. So it was better to not ask. I want to...No, I need to apologize about everything."</p>
<p>"I'm not ready to hear it. I might never be ready to hear it, Derek. You hurt me. You hurt me in the worst way." Stiles looked at his food to see that he had kept on eating by rote while he had been talking with Derek. Derek's food was nearly gone, even though he hated that dish. Stiles felt a little bad, making him eat it but not horribly bad about it.</p>
<p>"That's fine."</p>
<p>"I'm emotionally exhausted. I just want to go to bed and sleep. You can see yourself out when we finish eating. We can talk about the whole leaving me another time."</p>
<p>Derek nodded his head and started to eat faster. Stiles finished off his food and started to stand up to take care of the container. He liked to keep them as they were good to take to work with food as they were easy to reheat. He looked up when he saw a hand. Derek was holding his hand out. "I'll rinse them out and put them in the dishwasher." Derek's eyes darted down to Stiles' arm in his sling.</p>
<p>"Thanks."</p>
<p>"Is there anything else you need that you can't do, not like dressing and stuff, but just in general?"</p>
<p>"The bottle of juice in the fridge?" Stiles asked. He had tried that morning, but he couldn't even hold the bottle between his legs to get it open.</p>
<p>"Sure. I'll put it back on tight enough to not drip but not so tight you can't get it off again." Derek smiled, and for a few seconds, it was the man that Stiles had fallen in love with.</p>
<p>Stiles watched him clean up the kitchen, open up the fridge and take care of the juice. Then he was gone.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Stiles groaned and rubbed at his eyes before stretching back in his chair. It creaked, but he knew that it wasn't going to drop him anywhere. He was two days into a case that he was actually on-site in New York City for. His team was all spread around the country, working on other cases. Nothing was major, and needed all of them on it. He was happy with that. He liked doing cases alone. He was still in contact with them to get help when needed.</p>
<p>"Agent?" a voice called out.</p>
<p>Stiles turned around and looked at the NYPD officer standing in the door like he was about to tell his parents that he did something wrong.</p>
<p>"Yes?" Stiles asked.</p>
<p>"Another agent has arrived to help. He said that you requested him."</p>
<p>"Yes, I asked for help from the terrorism unit," Stiles said. He was the terrorism expert on the BAU team, but he sometimes needed help. He assumed that someone would call him, not that they would send another agent out there. New York had plenty of agents; he didn't need the body.</p>
<p>Stiles stood up to meet the agent, but he stopped as he crossed the threshold. He knew that back of the head. He knew exactly who had been sent. It had been six months since Derek had returned to the FBI after his undercover stint. He had been stuck on a desk job while getting used to being himself after five years undercover. He was evaluated to make sure that he hadn't gone native as some called it. Stiles hadn't realized that Derek had joined the terrorism unit. It fit though.</p>
<p>Derek turned around, stopping when he took in Stiles. They were both dressed down a little business casual instead of suits. It was summer, and it was just too hot for Stiles to dress in a suit that required a dress shirt and an undershirt. Derek was covered in his leather jacket, and it looked so out of place for the height of New York summer, but that was Derek.</p>
<p>"Agent Hale, welcome to New York," Stiles said.</p>
<p>"Agent Stilinski, is this where you have everything?" Derek asked.</p>
<p>"Yes. Come in. They even have a water kettle in here for me. I think I have a tea you will like," Stiles said.</p>
<p>"Do you know him?" the officer asked.</p>
<p>"They used to date," another FBI agent assigned to the case said.</p>
<p>The officer's eyes widened, and he hightailed it out of there. Derek laughed and walked over to the kettle to get it going. He grabbed one of the tumblers sitting beside it with the FBI logo that Stiles had brought with him.</p>
<p>"Ice machine is down the hall. I have a steeper in the sink over there," Stiles said as he waved toward the sink. He settled in at the desk he had and brought up a few things he hadn't printed yet and did that. He worked on his murder board next. He liked having it all laid out and wanted to see if Derek could see what he was missing. Stiles didn't have string-like he could do back home when he was working out of Quantico, but he had markers, and he had a lot of them.</p>
<p>"My boss said this case was a mess."</p>
<p>"Yes, the links between the victims weren't found until the fifth. Then I was called into it. Then link to terrorism came out with the sixth. So it's all very straightforward on that front but also murky as a silt-filled lake after an alligator fight," Stiles said.</p>
<p>"That's a new one," Derek said.</p>
<p>"Yeah, I spent three weeks in the south last year. Learned a lot more like it all from a guy who made them up on the spot," Stiles said.</p>
<p>"I didn't have time to read everything. Do you have print copies of the files you submitted with the case to get help?" Derek asked.</p>
<p>"Yeah, tallest stack on the far side of the table from the tea," Stiles said as he didn't look up from his file he was working on putting on the murder board correctly.</p>
<p>It was like old times, Derek bringing up facts and Stiles giving his opinion on it before Derek did.</p>
<p>Before Stiles knew it, it was evening, and they had worked through all of the afternoon. It was well past dinner time, and Stiles' stomach let him know it.</p>
<p>"I wonder if that one place is still in business."</p>
<p>"Let's go find out," Stiles said as he grabbed his phone and checking the battery as well as the time.</p>
<p>It wasn't until they were being seated that Stiles remembered that they had only ever been here as a couple. They had met during a case here where Stiles' team joined in a massive call for help with a case. It was only when they had connected while staying up late at night while on duty talking that they realized they worked in DC together. By the time they made it back to DC, they were already two dates into a relationship. They sometimes took the weekend train up to New York to eat here. It was where they had gone on their first date.</p>
<p>The inside had not changed all that much, a few new art pieces and a new set of tables and chairs, but that was it. Even the guy standing in the back waiting on orders was the same.</p>
<p>"Tea?" the waitress asked.</p>
<p>"Yes, green please, hot," Derek said.</p>
<p>"Of course," the waitress said. She didn't have a name tag on and hadn't introduced herself, but Stiles was used to that. Not everyone wore a nametag, and Stiles understood not wanting people to know their names.</p>
<p>The pot of hot tea came out a few minutes later, and it was set on the heated spot for it. The small cups were next. Derek grabbed the sugar and scooted it over towards Stiles.</p>
<p>"I drink it all unsweet now," Stiles said.</p>
<p>"Oh, that's great. I know you were working to that before," Derek said.</p>
<p>It felt wrong and weird. Stiles looked around, trying to find something that wasn't work to talk about, but there was nothing like that left. Instead, there was just this gaping maw of five years of them not speaking at all.</p>
<p>"How are things?" Derek asked.</p>
<p>"Pretty good," Stiles said. He flexed his hand and felt the minor ache there. He wasn't qualified to use a gun with just that hand yet, but it was good he was trained to do it with both. He was recently back to full field duty, which was why he was here in New York City after being trapped in Quantico and DC for the last six months to get his hand back to fighting shape. It still ached sometimes, but that was still his body healing, the doctor said. It wasn't the worst thing in the world, but Stiles knew that he didn't want to talk about his hand.</p>
<p>"I wasn't asking about your hand, Stiles. I was asking about life in general," Derek said.</p>
<p>Stiles nodded his head. He picked at the silverware that was on the table. He didn't even touch the menu. He sighed and looked at Derek. Who was back to not being clean-shaven? He had the five o'clock that he developed around ten in the morning. Stiles used to love to feel that on his neck when Derek would nuzzle into him.</p>
<p>"Pretty good. Things are settling down again finally. Dad still bitches about his new deputies that know more about technology than he does. Their newest system keeps on breaking. The state needs to get a better upgrade, but they are just bouncing from issue to issue instead of getting ahead of the issues. Scott's got his third kid on the way; Allison is a saint. I think it's twins, and Allison keeps on telling me that if it ends up being twins, she's moving her and Scott across the country so I can help raise them."</p>
<p>"And Lydia?" Derek asked.</p>
<p>Stiles heard the derision in Derek's voice over that.</p>
<p>"Married, as she has been for the last four years. Aiden is a lovely man. Jackson married a man named Ethan, and it wasn't until after Jackson came with Ethan to visit his brother that it found that Ethan and Aiden are twins. They didn't get to see each other a lot for a few years and mainly kept in contact through email. Lydia is staying here, so Aiden is, so Ethan and Jackson are moving into the same building on the same floor, the other penthouse apartment."</p>
<p>"Did you say that Jackson and Lydia used to date?" Derek asked.</p>
<p>"Yes," Stiles said.</p>
<p>"And they married a set of twins?"</p>
<p>Stiles nodded his head.</p>
<p>"So Lydia is married?" Derek asked.</p>
<p>"Yup and Aiden isn't the sharing type. He's learned to deal with how Lydia and I are to each other. Jackson's even supportive of our friendship. Aiden's never got jealous about anything. Even when Lydia was the one who practically lived with me when I was trying to get better."</p>
<p>"Get better?"</p>
<p>"You've not earned that. Aiden moved into the apartment with Lydia while I got better. Didn't get upset when Lydia slept with me when I needed a body beside me. Nightmares and sleepwalking. They are a bitch."</p>
<p>"You've not done either of those since your mother died," Derek answered.</p>
<p>"Nah, five years ago, I hadn't. Panic attacks came back as well. Hell, when Lydia was on a trip for work, Aiden became the one to comfort me."</p>
<p>Derek looked pissed off, but Stiles wasn't going to pull his punches.</p>
<p>"How-" Derek stopped when the waitress walked up to the table.</p>
<p>Stiles looked up to order, but she had food in her hands. Steph was also the same lady who had waited on them every time they came here.</p>
<p>"Hey, I got really worried," Steph said.</p>
<p>"Work got shitty for a few years," Derek said before he leaned back so she could set down his plate of appetizer rolls in front of him. She set down Stiles' next.</p>
<p>"Still just the eel sauce?" she asked.</p>
<p>"Yes, please," Stiles answered.</p>
<p>"Be right back," Steph answered.</p>
<p>"Let's go to different topics," Derek said.</p>
<p>"Sure, how is your family doing?" Stiles asked.</p>
<p>"When was the last time you talked to them?"</p>
<p>"Well, let's see. Your parents were about a week after you left me. I called and left a message and then did the same every day for a week, and they never called me back. So I stopped trying. I texted some with Spencer but that died off even after a while. Cora's the only one who checks in with me about once every year around my birthday. So I just kind of don't attempt any contact anymore."</p>
<p>"I'm sorry," Derek said.</p>
<p>"Hey, it's not your fault that your family only seemed to like me because we were dating." Stiles really didn't want to get into how much it had stung. He had gone on trips with Derek's parents before, short shopping trips and the like when it was the season, and he thought that he and Cora were friends even though he was dating her brother. He had needed comfort from them when he never heard back from them. It had told Stiles exactly where he was in their life. "Did they know?"</p>
<p>"I told them I was taking the undercover mission and that I had broken up with you. I didn't tell them more than that."</p>
<p>"They probably thought that I had broken it off because I didn't want to wait for you or something. It's okay. I understand." Stiles shrugged.</p>
<p>"We should probably not discuss this in public or while working the case."</p>
<p>"Yeah, I guess I kind of got lax. Books?" Stiles asked.</p>
<p>Derek nodded his head.</p>
<p>Books were always an easy topic. They both read a lot and had many subjects in common, so he figured that they would have a few they could discuss.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Stiles heard the knock on his door just as he was waking up. He looked at the time. It was just after eleven, which, since he didn't even get home until four, meant he had been woken up by the knocking and not the other way around. He sighed and got out of bed, grabbing a t-shirt and throwing it on so that whoever was at his door didn't see him mostly naked. He had underwear on, and he was glad of that, but he wasn't putting on pants. He checked the camera that he had because whoever had bypassed the door. So it was either someone in the building or someone else who had ill thoughts. It was Derek. He fell in the middle of that.</p>
<p>Opening the door, Stiles headed into the kitchen. Derek had been by three more times, and every time they got close to discussing why Derek had taken the undercover job, Derek had shut down on him.</p>
<p>"Morning," Derek said.</p>
<p>Stiles didn't say anything but worked on getting the coffee pot going. He had turned it off the night before, so the smell of coffee didn't wake him up.</p>
<p>"I have coffee," Derek said.</p>
<p>Stiles turned to look to see that he did have coffee. An entire tray of drinks at that and one of the larger boxes from the same coffee shop. It was the place that had been their little morning refuge from home on the days where going to work just wasn't something they wanted to do. Stiles loved his job, but there were just days that he needed a break. The little bit of home away from home of the place was something that Stiles had loved.</p>
<p>"You are lucky you have all of that."</p>
<p>"Reyes said that your case turned horrible."</p>
<p>"Reyes?" Stiles asked. He tried to think about who that was. He had no clue. There was no one with that name in his section. Well, there was the new girl; Stiles only remembered her first name, Erica, since she was one of the two agents besides Derek who had been undercover with him. He didn't remember her last name at all.</p>
<p>"Erica," Derek said.</p>
<p>"Ah, the new girl to the C team. Gotcha. The case wasn’t worse or better than anywhere there is a cult involved," Stiles said.</p>
<p>Derek nodded his head. He knew the perils of the job the way that some cases clung for a little while, especially when they were repeats back to back. It was the second cult case that Stiles had been on back to back. It had only happened by chance, but it still fucking sucked. They hadn't been able to save anyone but a single kid who had hidden when the shooting started. It had been a small cult of only fifteen members, but that was still fifteen too many deaths, all for a man who was going to be going to jail for the rest of his life.</p>
<p>"Is that why you came over?" Stiles asked.</p>
<p>"No, I had already planned on that." Derek set down the box after Stiles took the coffee cups from him. There were a number and letter combos on each cup. The first just had Mx3 and the second was WMx1. Stiles handed that one to Derek and took the Mx3. The other two cups were tea. A chai latte by the CL on it, and the other was a lavender chai latte. Stiles wondered which one Derek had got for him and which for himself as they both like the lavender lattes.</p>
<p>Derek popped open the lid on the box, and inside wasn't the doughnuts that Stiles expected but the more expensive pastries. There was still a baker's dozen, but it was pastries. Some of them were Derek's favorite, some were Stiles, and a few they would end up fighting over. Stiles grabbed the one he wanted above all others and took a bite.</p>
<p>"You think that would stop me?" Derek asked.</p>
<p>Stiles shrugged. He knew that it wouldn't stop Derek. Even liking to claim things didn't stop Derek from stealing food from Stiles. Stiles didn't even offer up a bite of the food at all. He just kept on eating. He stopped to take a drink of his coffee with the extra shot. He enjoyed their espresso shots. It was nice and smooth without having an overly bitter taste. Stiles was pleased with Derek's choice for him.</p>
<p>"So that still your favorite?" Derek asked.</p>
<p>"Not really, but I do like it. They have the peppermint mocha year-round. It's what I've been getting. Three pumps chocolate and two peppermint and the standard three shots of espresso."</p>
<p>Derek nodded his head.</p>
<p>"So, what are you doing here?" Stiles asked.</p>
<p>"I wanted to check on you and offer to go sparring with you."</p>
<p>"Why?"</p>
<p>"Give you a chance to burn off that energy that you need to burn off," Derek said.</p>
<p>"And you don't think that I have someone else I can do that with?" Stiles asked.</p>
<p>Derek shrugged.</p>
<p>"Derek," Stiles said.</p>
<p>"I miss you, okay. After six months, I regretted going into the case, and I was about to pull out after a year and have my death faked or something. Then one of the guys killed a family for no other reason than one of the kids, a seven-year-old, had looked him wrong. I promised myself then that I would see it through, but I didn't think it would take another four years."</p>
<p>"Why haven't you gone home to see your family?" Stiles asked.</p>
<p>"Oh, you-" Derek stopped and took a sip of his coffee. "I forgot. Spencer got a good job at a DC hospital, so mom and dad left Beacon Hills and moved out here. They didn't want to be that far away from him. Cora and Laura are in New York City."</p>
<p>"That's where you went the night after we closed the case up there."</p>
<p>"Yes, I didn't want to bring them up, given everything."</p>
<p>"Hey, I don't hold it against them." Stiles nearly said something else, but he really didn't want to start a fight with Derek over him bad-mouthing himself. He had enough of that, and for a while, he had done well, right up until Derek left.</p>
<p>"I do."</p>
<p>"You shouldn't. It's not like we were that serious, it seems."</p>
<p>"Stiles," Derek said. He rubbed at his eyes and drank the rest of the coffee in his cup before grabbing the teas. He picked up the plain chai. "You don't need to go back to that."</p>
<p>"You are five years too late on that, Derek. I had one fucking fear, one, when I started something serious with you. You promised me that you would never leave me like that. That you wouldn't just fucking leave like Malia did when she graduated high school. I still haven't heard from her, you know. I came home, and you were gone. I wasn't allowed to know about your whole being an undercover thing, so I just assumed that it happened again. No one ever loves me enough to stay with me, to want me as much as I want them. It might not have been what you were deciding at that moment, but it's what happened."</p>
<p>"No, it wasn't. I had actually kind of forgot about that until right now."</p>
<p>"Well, I never did. I never for a fucking second forgot about it. So fuck you very much." </p>
<p>"Stiles." Derek's tone was soft, and he looked like he wanted to reach out and pull Stiles into a hug. Stiles jerked himself away, fleeing from where Derek was. He didn't really care about much at the moment but just getting the fuck away. He made it to the bedroom and his window seat, the main reason why he loved the apartment and had since he and Derek had toured it the first time. He dropped down into it and put his head on the window. He felt Derek's hand on his shoulder, but he couldn't react. The only thing he could do was try and breathe. </p>
<p>"Breathe with me," Derek said as he sat down across from Stiles. He laid his hand over Stiles' heart before he scooted even closer. "Tell me five things you can see."</p>
<p>Stiles worked through the normal technique that worked the best for him with Derek. He was kind of pissed that Derek remembered it well enough that he didn't stumble at all during it. He just kept on talking and reassuring Stiles that he was there. He didn't know what to do when Derek pulled him into his arms, but he just let it happen. He tried not to feel good about it, but it was hard. He had always felt safe in Derek's arms, from the moment they turned into something more. </p>
<p>Beacon Hills had been the main point that had got them talking outside of work. Stiles knew of the Hales, and Derek knew Stiles existed as he knew the Sheriff had a son. It had just expanded from there. It had been just what Stiles needed at the time to help him finally get over Malia ditching him like she had to run around Europe. He heard about her a little bit here and there from other people, but she had never contacted him after texting him a week after she had left for Europe.</p>
<p>"I think that my subconscious knew," Derek said. </p>
<p>Stiles moved a little, but Derek didn't let him go. </p>
<p>"I knew exactly what I was doing. Peter told me that I needed to tell you everything." </p>
<p>"Okay," Stiles said. </p>
<p>"I knew you were going to propose," Derek said.</p>
<p>Stiles kept his mouth shut. They didn't need to get into that part of things. He wasn't sure how the hell Derek knew, but back then, Stiles would have said that Derek knew him better than anyone else in the world. Yet, it seemed that it was still that way.</p>
<p>"I wasn't ready, and instead of telling you that I wasn't ready, I just left. I was offered the job the month before, the time I spent training for undercover and how well I did it when I was in that unit, I was highly sought out for it. Then I just accepted it. I wrote a letter to you, and I left it and then I came back an hour later and picked it up. I just left no way for you to know what I was doing. I assumed that someone would tell you about it, and you would hate me even more."</p>
<p>"How did you find me?"</p>
<p>"I was walking the perimeter when I heard the deer and then a scream from you as you fell. I thought that I was crazy. I had been thinking about you more and more. After the deal went down. My team was set to move in and take everyone down. I thought that I had made myself see it as I had been thinking about you. Going to your office and begging your forgiveness. I still went after the person who yelled, especially after hearing the scream. I fished you out, and you were shivering so bad, but your eyes locked with mine and the way you said my name. You sounded like you were finally home, and it broke my heart. Then you woke up all the way, and all I could see was anger in your eyes. You were so pissed off. I also knew that you were there for something. We were not anywhere that you would go. The lack of ID told me that you were also on the job, and I couldn't have you getting back to your people. I needed to take them down to explain why I had been gone for so long. I needed to just prove that I was gone for a good reason. I didn't know that you were just scouting, and the plans were already in place. Then there you were with your damned broken hand. You did that just to fucking spite me."</p>
<p>"I did it because I wasn't sure if you were undercover or had turned traitor. I wasn't going to wait for someone else to come into that place and kill me just because I wasn't supposed to be there."</p>
<p>"I was second, Stiles. No one was going to kill anyone in my place. For all they would know, I had kept you there to have something warm to come home to after the deal. Your team had taken them down in a shorter time working on something than I had in five years. I was fucking pissed for a week. I was pissed at my boss for fucking the team over like that. If your team had bungled things up because they didn't have all of the information, he would have been the one to blame. Then things were just shitty. I wanted to scream at the world, and then I just wanted to be sheltered from it."</p>
<p>"You hurt me," Stiles said. He closed his eyes and let his body slump down into Derek's. He knew what Derek had been doing over the last while with showing up with treats and taking him out to places. He never touched him, never made it seem like it was dating, but it was. Derek had been making Stiles feel safe around him again. </p>
<p>"I know. Fuck, I know that." Derek turned his head to where he could press a kiss to Stiles' head. </p>
<p>It was like they went back six years into the past, and Derek was comforting Stiles after a nightmare sent him into a panic attack. It had happened more than once, but Derek had never been upset about it. He wasn't sure what he wanted. He was lost, and he didn't like that feeling.</p>
<p>"I'm so sorry, Stiles. I'm so fucking sorry about hurting you. I'm so damned sorry. I know that words mean nothing, but I promise, and I will keep the promise of never hurting you like that again. I'll spend every single day the rest of our lives proving it."</p>
<p>Stiles nodded his head. He knew that when he had gone on that little meal date in New York the second time with Derek that he was going to give in. He had just held off as long as possible.</p>
<p>"I'm living with Spencer. Mom and Dad offered to let me live with them, but I didn't want to go home like that. I don't want to be that kind of person, Stiles. I really don't. I don't want to hurt you." </p>
<p>"It's gonna be slow as hell," Stiles said.</p>
<p>"I figured. I hurt you and know that you don't forgive easily and never forget. You are going to be an asshole to me and throw this into my face for a while, trying to push me away. I remember a little bit of that from when we were first dating before you trusted me. I broke that trust, and if it never comes back, I at least want to be friends. Do you think we can do that?"</p>
<p>"We can try." Stiles felt like he had just thrown himself off a cliff and hoped that Derek dove after him and opened the parachute. It wasn't a feeling he liked, but he needed it. He needed to have something in his life that wasn't work, and the last six years had told him that he wasn't open to letting strangers in. He could do this. He wanted to. Even if it took a while for the hurt to heal.</p>
<h1>The End</h1>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I write fanfiction for fun. It's a hobby and a stress relief. I refuse to stress over my writing. What you see is what you get. Errors, plot holes, and all. Thank you for reading my story! </p>
<p>I can be found on MeWe <a href="https://mewe.com/i/beccaqueen1">here</a>, join me there and we can discuss my fics and whatnot.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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